New Grub Street Part 107

'I've got Lake's place on Chit-Chat!' cried the other hoa.r.s.ely. 'Two hundred and fifty a year! Lake and the editor quarrelled--pummelled each other--neither know nor care what it was about. My fortune's made!'

'You're a modest man,' remarked Jasper, smiling.

'Certainly I am. I have always admitted it. But remember that there's my connection with Fleet as well; no need to give that up. Presently I shall be making a clear six hundred, my dear sir!

A clear six hundred, if a penny!'

'Satisfactory, so far.'

'But you must remember that I'm not a big gun, like you! Why, my dear Milvain, a year ago I should have thought an income of two hundred a glorious competence. I don't aim at such things as are fit for you. You won't be content till you have thousands; of course I know that. But I'm a humble fellow. Yet no; by Jingo, I'm not! In one way I'm not--I must confess it.'

'In what instance are you arrogant?'

'I can't tell you--not yet; this is neither time nor place. I say, when will you dine with me? I shall give a dinner to half a dozen of my acquaintances somewhere or other. Poor old Biffen must come. When can you dine?'

'Give me a week's notice, and I'll fit it in.'

That dinner came duly off. On the day that followed, Jasper and Dora left town for their holiday; they went to the Channel Islands, and spent more than half of the three weeks they had allowed themselves in Sark.

Pa.s.sing over from Guernsey to that island, they were amused to see a copy of Chit-Chat in the hands of an obese and well-dressed man.

'Is he one of the quarter-educated?' asked Dora, laughing.

'Not in Whelpdale's sense of the word. But, strictly speaking, no doubt he is. The quarter-educated const.i.tute a very large cla.s.s indeed; how large, the huge success of that paper is demonstrating. I'll write to Whelpdale, and let him know that his benefaction has extended even to Sark.'

This letter was written, and in a few days there came a reply.

'Why, the fellow has written to you as well!' exclaimed Jasper, taking up a second letter; both were on the table of their sitting-room when they came to their lodgings for lunch. 'That's his hand.'

'It looks like it.'

Dora hummed an air as she regarded the envelope, then she took it away with her to her room upstairs.

'What had he to say?' Jasper inquired, when she came down again and seated herself at the table.

'Oh, a friendly letter. What does he say to you?'

Dora had never looked so animated and fresh of colour since leaving London; her brother remarked this, and was glad to think that the air of the Channel should be doing her so much good. He read Whelpdale's letter aloud; it was facetious, but oddly respectful.

'The reverence that fellow has for me is astonishing,' he observed with a laugh. 'The queer thing is, it increases the better he knows me.'

Dora laughed for five minutes.

'Oh, what a splendid epigram!' she exclaimed. 'It is indeed a queer thing, Jasper! Did you mean that to be a good joke, or was it better still by coming out unintentionally?'

'You are in remarkable spirits, old girl. By-the-by, would you mind letting me see that letter of yours?'

He held out his hand.

'I left it upstairs,' Dora replied carelessly.

'Rather presumptuous in him, it seems to me.'

'Oh, he writes quite as respectfully to me as he does to you,' she returned, with a peculiar smile.

'But what business has he to write at all? It's confounded impertinence, now I come to think of it. I shall give him a hint to remember his position.'

Dora could not be quite sure whether he spoke seriously or not. As both of them had begun to eat with an excellent appet.i.te, a few moments were allowed to pa.s.s before the girl again spoke.

'His position is as good as ours,' she said at length.

'As good as ours? The "sub." of a paltry rag like Chit-Chat, and a.s.sistant to a literary agency!'

'He makes considerably more money than we do.'

'Money! What's money?'

Dora was again mirthful.

'Oh, of course money is nothing! We write for honour and glory. Don't forget to insist on that when you reprove Mr Whelpdale; no doubt it will impress him.'

Late in the evening of that day, when the brother and sister had strolled by moonlight up to the windmill which occupies the highest point of Sark, and as they stood looking upon the pale expanse of sea, dotted with the gleam of light-houses near and far, Dora broke the silence to say quietly:

'I may as well tell you that Mr Whelpdale wants to know if I will marry him.'

'The deuce he does!' cried Jasper, with a start. 'If I didn't half suspect something of that kind! What astounding impudence!'

'You seriously think so?'

'Well, don't you? You hardly know him, to begin with. And then--oh, confound it!'

'Very well, I'll tell him that his impudence astonishes me.'

'You will?'

'Certainly. Of course in civil terms. But don't let this make any difference between you and him. Just pretend to know nothing about it; no harm is done.'

'You are speaking in earnest?'

'Quite. He has written in a very proper way, and there's no reason whatever to disturb our friendliness with him. I have a right to give directions in a matter like this, and you'll please to obey them.'

Before going to bed Dora wrote a letter to Mr Whelpdale, not, indeed, accepting his offer forthwith, but conveying to him with much gracefulness an unmistakable encouragement to persevere. This was posted on the morrow, and its writer continued to benefit most remarkably by the sun and breezes and rock-scrambling of Sark.

Soon after their return to London, Dora had the satisfaction of paying the first visit to her sister at the Dolomores' house in Ovington Square. Maud was established in the midst of luxuries, and talked with laughing scorn of the days when she inhabited Grub Street; her literary tastes were henceforth to serve as merely a note of distinction, an added grace which made evident her superiority to the well-attired and smooth-tongued people among whom she was content to shine. On the one hand, she had contact with the world of fashionable literature, on the other with that of fashionable ignorance. Mrs Lane's house was a meeting-point of the two spheres.

'I shan't be there very often,' remarked Jasper, as Dora and he discussed their sister's magnificence. 'That's all very well in its way, but I aim at something higher.'

'So do I,' Dora replied.